


Cross Grain

by microwaveslayer



Category: Beowulf (Poem)
Genre: AU Where Grendel Survives, Grendel is a homosexual, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-13 22:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2167881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/microwaveslayer/pseuds/microwaveslayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is left for a monster wounded by a radiant god? What is left for a monster than is made weak in unspeakable ways?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cross Grain

**Author's Note:**

> Our English teacher wanted us to re-write the fight scene between Beowulf and Grendel from Grendel's perspective. I am a bleeding heart for monsters, so this happened.

I rose from the stinking mud, my only home. Scents of men and their constructs drifted toward me and I breathed deeply. One scent was different, strange, and I found curiosity bubbling within me. I tilted my head, trying to hear something over the wails of my siblings. With a grumble, I began my ascent toward the Danes.

            Slowly, the wails and grunts of by siblings softened. Fools! They merely hoped for a better life while I worked toward my niche. But then again, I was Grendel, the favourite.

            I slunk through the darkened streets of the city, filled with scared sleepers, and the scent stronger and drifting from Herot. I snorted, a bit disgusted. While I could have devoured a child and hurried home, I refrained. Children were so soft and fragile and I had no need to eat the weak.

            Soon, I found myself outside the doors of Herot, sniffing at the crack between the large doors. Curiosity drove me half-mad and I decided to throw open the doors, knocking them off my hinges.

            Before me was a sight unseen for years.

            Men slumbered, a different breed from the slumbering cattle below. I slunk into the room, sniffing curiously at one. Then I decided to have a taste. One or two bites and I decided, while it tasted much too sweet, I might as well feed.

            I turned, sniffing at my next meal. As I opened my jaws and reached with my claws, he gripped me, pinning my claws with ease. I shrieked, startled. Not often does food attack.

            I flailed, struggling violently and shrieking. Then I stared into the icy eyes of the radiant god that clutched my wrists. I felt weak in a way I had never known before.

            “Please,” I growled, voice catching in my throat. From the shouting of the other men and the swords dragged across my hide—the curse of Cain-I didn’t think he heard me. I spoke louder, forcing confidence and hoping to startle the living statue before me.

            “Release me!” I shouted, snarling.

            The only response was the handsome god tightening his grip. I knew I could not harm in and, as we slammed against a stone wall, I submitted. As I released my will to fight, I was overcome with a great pain, the sound of sinew snapping making me scream. I knew the blood was mine and I rushed out into the night, ignoring the cheers and insults that mixed together.

            Only when I had returned to the stinking mud, did I let myself howl in pain. I wept bitterly for a reason I did not know and, before I knew it, my sister—the elf of night, Phaere—tended to my wound. She used the mud and rags to prevent me from dying.

            “Why do I weep over a man?” I asked her, tears still rolling down my hideous skin.

            “Because the man is beautiful,” Phaere replied. “Also, because you are weak.” She tightened rags, making me whimper.

            “But men—”

            “Are what you fancy,” she finished while she finished with the ragged bandages. “I’ll see if I can get you some wine or mead.”

            I watched her walk off into the night. She danced on the mud like floating lights and I loathed her. I loathed all women.

            Alone in my thoughts and my heart, I sunk into the mud, weeping and cursing.

* * *

             Twelve winters were spent fuming and cursing. With every passing day, my rage for everything lasted. I heard more stories of the radiant god, though my midnight trips were shorter. I always imagined those cold eyes filled with bloodlust and it always sent me to my swamp to sulk.

            Phaere offered me meat, wine, mead, gold, anything to get me to join her on her hunts, but I refused. I had seen enough of mortal men to know I hated them, the wives they took, and the lives they led.

            Only one thing brought me out of my swamp.

            One spring, cold chains covering the ground, two bandits shoved a boy—barely a man—in the mud, in my mud. I raised my head and supposed they saw me. They fled, but did not shriek.

            The boy scrambled out of the mud and I could hear grunts and grumbles. Gently, I scooped the boy up, placing him on solid ground and hissing at the hungry cries of my sinister siblings.

            The boy didn’t scream when he saw me.

            Blue eyes stared at me quizzically. He sat with an elbow on his knee and he regarded me with interest.

            “Go,” I grumbled. “I might eat you instead.”

            “I doubt it,” the boy replied. “You’re not that terrifying.”

            “I can be when I crush your skull beneath my teeth,” I grumbled, making sure to wash a sickening wind over him.

            He coughed and stood, putting his hand out. When I stared at it, he rolled his eyes and leapt at me, hugging me.

            “Why?” I asked, growling.

            “Because you’re not that scary. You need a bath and I know just the place,” the boy replied, giggling. “We both need baths.”

            “Your name?” I asked.

            “Birger.”

            “I suppose I could follow you.”

            “Good,” Birger replied, taking my claw in his own hand. “You’ve no choice, you beast.”

            I stared, but decided to play along. This boy was fragile and could be harmed if I did not accompany him. He hummed, not minding the fetid mud caught in his hair or my own scaled claws. As we walked deeper into the woods, I growled at shadows, preventing my siblings and men from hurting him.

            Birger released my claw and gestured to a clear spring, proclaiming, “Here is the spot!” He began to strip and dove into the shining water.

            When he didn’t surface right away, I rushed to the edge of the water and stared down. The water shone and reflected a scaled face covered in mud. My attention was drawn to Birger when he splashed me with water from the pool.

            “Come in, sir beast,” Birger replied, laughing. “Even you shall be clean.”

            I stared at the boy swimming in the middle of the lake. Then, I dove in.

            Feeling one’s monstrous hide being dissolved is an odd experience. I felt lighter, happier and, when I came up to the surface, Birger kissed me.

            “You are handsome, sir beast,” Birger commented, laughing lightly.

            I stared down at the water and found only a handsome face—one of a boy on the cusp of manhood—staring back. I smiled for the first time in forever.

            “What is your name, anyway?” Birger asked, tilting his head to scrub the mud from his hair.

            “Grendel,” I replied.

            “Grendel the man,” Birger said. “I rather like it.”

            I smiled and began to help Birger wash the clumps of mud out of his fair hair with ease.


End file.
